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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- I Medieval philosophical literature
- II Aristotle in the middle ages
- III The old logic
- IV Logic in the high middle ages: semantic theory
- V Logic in the high middle ages: propositions and modalities
- VI Metaphysics and epistemology
- VII Natural philosophy
- VIII Philosophy of mind and action
- 29 The potential and the agent intellect
- 30 Sense, intellect, and imagination in Albert, Thomas, and Siger
- 31 Criticisms of Aristotelian psychology and the Augustinian–Aristotelian synthesis
- 32 Free will and free choice
- 33 Thomas Aquinas on human action
- IX Ethics
- X Politics
- XI The defeat, neglect, and revival of scholasticism
- Index nominum
- Index rerum
- References
31 - Criticisms of Aristotelian psychology and the Augustinian–Aristotelian synthesis
from VIII - Philosophy of mind and action
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- I Medieval philosophical literature
- II Aristotle in the middle ages
- III The old logic
- IV Logic in the high middle ages: semantic theory
- V Logic in the high middle ages: propositions and modalities
- VI Metaphysics and epistemology
- VII Natural philosophy
- VIII Philosophy of mind and action
- 29 The potential and the agent intellect
- 30 Sense, intellect, and imagination in Albert, Thomas, and Siger
- 31 Criticisms of Aristotelian psychology and the Augustinian–Aristotelian synthesis
- 32 Free will and free choice
- 33 Thomas Aquinas on human action
- IX Ethics
- X Politics
- XI The defeat, neglect, and revival of scholasticism
- Index nominum
- Index rerum
- References
Summary
Thirteenth-century criticism of Aquinas' Aristotelianism
Strong reaction among traditional theologians in Paris and Oxford against the massive introduction of new Aristotelian ideas was still growing at the time Albert, Thomas, and Siger taught and wrote. It culminated in the formal act of condemnation by Bishop Tempier in 1277. For a while the Averroistic trend was halted, and the main target of criticism was Thomas Aquinas. A conception of the soul too closely connected to the body, too near to matter was an offense against the entire Christian tradition, which derived so much from Platonism and Augustine. The criticism also attacked the concept of the potential and agent intellect. It rejected the potential nature of the intellect which received and did not produce cognition, it rejected the effect of sensible species on the intellect, and the independence attributed to human cognition, unassisted by divine illumination.
Reactions to the criticism
Even Thomas' pupils and defenders stepped back in the face of this overwhelming pressure. Giles of Rome, although he basically agreed with Thomas' conception of the potential and agent intellect, described the agent intellect also as a quasi-Avicennian storehouse of pre-empirical knowledge and rules of understanding, conceived of as complete potential knowledge. Godfrey of Fontaines defended Thomas in his Quodlibeta, written between 1285 and 1297, and gave his conception of the soul an even firmer Aristotelian character, but he denied the possibility that phantasmata can be turned into intelligible species by the agent intellect, and indeed eliminated intelligible species altogether as an element of intellective cognition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Later Medieval PhilosophyFrom the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, pp. 623 - 628Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
References
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